


Hug your destiny

by Hannah, Petra



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2018-03-01 22:23:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2789846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannah/pseuds/Hannah, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur Shappey, unofficial air steward, is also known to a very few people as the Iron Moth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hug your destiny

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a brief confusion between Arthur Shappey and Arthur of The Tick. Thanks to [](http://thatyourefuse.dreamwidth.org/profile)[thatyourefuse](http://thatyourefuse.dreamwidth.org/) for beta-reading.

Arthur Shappey is also known, to a very few people, as the Iron Moth. He has a white costume with thick antennae, retractable wings, and a bodysuit with the aeronautically approved lights for an ultralight flying vessel.

Also, he can fly. Not glide, not hover, but fly.

His father built him the first Iron Moth suit when he was very young and told him never to fly without the suit. (If he has to, if it's an emergency, he might hover to get to something on a high shelf. If it's an emergency, just up and down. Like a ladder but without the ladder.)

But only if no one's looking.

The first time Martin and Douglas catch him getting something from the highest shelf in the Portakabin, he can't talk coherently for half an hour because he cannot lie for anything. He tries to pretend he's wearing the Moth Suit under his clothes even though that would make them really, really bulky.

There follows an endless round of, "Can you fly?"

"Yes."

"Without the suit?"

"Mmmffff."

"Arthur," Douglas coaxes him for the twentieth time. No one can coax like Douglas, who possesses what in others is known as "strong empathy" but in Douglas Richardson's Air England file was notated as "diabolical understanding of the human subconscious unimpeded by ethics," as part of his dismissal.

"'s," Arthur admits, eventually.

"But that's brilliant," Martin says.

"Don't tell anyone ever," Arthur says, over Douglas's murmur of, "You may have worked here too long."

"Does your mum know?" Martin asks.

"Obviously," Arthur says. "I couldn't control it till I was two, but after that Dad said no flying without the suit so people would think it was the suit.”

"Good lord." Douglas wipes his brow. "And I thought my daughter's pyrokinesis was a terror."

They get the full story from him eventually, just as Douglas pried Martin's minor, awful talent from him, as if there is any use in knowing things are going to go terribly wrong just before they do without knowing how to fix them.

"Can Carolyn fly?" Douglas asks.

"No," Arthur says with certainty. "But she can yell at my dad to fix the suit and he does, since it was his idea anyway, and he doesn't charge us for it anymore, so that's brilliant of her."

Martin stares and repeats quietly, "He doesn't charge you for it anymore."

"Martin," Douglas says.

Arthur's shoulders are a bit hunched. "I'm sorry I didn't have the Iron Moth with me earlier, or I'd have nipped up and changed the tail light no problem."

"It's not your fault," Martin says.

"Though it would have been excellent to be rid of Hercules that much sooner," Douglas says with disdain.

"Why does he get up your nose so much?" Martin asks.

"He thinks he's a bloody weather god, but not a useful, 'I'm going on a picnic tomorrow, could you make sure it's sunny in Fitton,' sort." Douglas rolls his eyes. "No, no." He puts on a deeper, mocking voice. "'Can I make it snow in June? Only if you ask for it in April. A butterfly flapping its wings will get you a very slight breeze right over the butterfly. If you want a solid tailwind, you need either the normal winds of the planet or very good planning.' As if he can prove that anything he says he started six weeks ago resulted in what happened today."

"What's the point in being able to play with the weather if you can't make there be rainbows whenever you want?" Arthur asks, seeming cheerier by the moment, as tends to happen with Arthur, or indeed anyone left in Douglas's presence for long. "Or lightning strikes on anyone who bothers you? That would be brilliant."

"Indeed," Douglas says, smiling. "And Hercules is anything but that."  



End file.
